Welcome to DocMartin

Bauhinia, emblem of Hong Kong, is a tree with beautiful, orchid-like flowers.

Chek Lap Kok will be levelled to make way for runways, leaving only a token hill... this is the last survey Lazell and Goodyear will make on the island...

Pets can help people heal from illnesses

Visits to openbill stork colonies in Thailand

The magazine for the serious birdspotter, Vol II

A family holiday, with strong birding - and photography - elements, in Yunnan, sw China.

Deep Bay wetland, Hong Kong - internationally important, especially for water birds

Birding in Hong Kong

Info and links re bird flu, especially the nasty H5N1 variant in Asia

Autumn bird migration at Beidaihe, China, 1986-1990

Autumn bird migration at Beidaihe 1986 to 1990 conclusions

Checklist of the birds of Beidaihe, east China

Instead of environmental enlightenment, swathes of society have lurched towards anti-science; yet this planet is our life support system.

While it’s all too easy to turn on a tap and take the flow of water for granted, Hong Kong’s water supply system has been vital to its development as a “world city”.

Although much has since been said and written about the need for China to reverse its environmental decline, recent years have abounded with news reports telling of the nation’s earth lurching from bad to terrible.

Euan Nisbet leads science team to Hong Kong in quest to find why levels of potent greenhouse gas methane are rising in the atmosphere

Frederick Sanger made pivotal contributions to studying the chemistry of life.

We humans seem smart yet have a great fondness for irrational codswallop.

Lithium batteries have proven especially attractive as they produce high power relatively to their size.

There is potential for deriving virtually unlimited clean energy from fusion power, without the severe downsides of nuclear power based on splitting atoms apart.

Stunning fossils from Mesozoic Pompeii illuminate the dawn of birds.

Even with science reports, it’s worth remembering the adage: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Like all scientific theories, Darwinism has been questioned and tested wherever possible. Among scientists, it has held up well, becoming a pillar of modern science. But this has not prevented attacks, chiefly from outside the scientific community.

A field called epigenetics concerns ways the DNA code is actually expressed and implemented.

Did life start in a primordial soup on earth, or with chemicals carried from Mars?

Worldwide, there are many developments in robotics, several of which are weirder and wackier than a talking version of a dead novelist and a robot board member.

Though we spend almost a third of our lives asleep, sleep science did not really begin till 1953, the same year the structure of DNA was discovered.

Earth’s neighbours are far more than simply gas giants and rocky worlds

October 2012 the announcements of the Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, both of which were for work centring on transfers of information.

From volcanoes on Java, to a supervolcano in Hong Kong, and dormant supervolcanoes today.

For all their differences, Black-faced Spoonbill and Spoon-billed Sandpiper have one thing in common. Both are teetering on the brink of extinction.

Catfish at fish farm in Java fed dead chickens - helping show integrated fish farming may play role in spreading H5N1 bird flu.

Visiting Borneo to learn about deforestation and imeet people working to save the remaining forests.

This past summer, a team of biologists scoured Siberian tundra in search of nests and eggs of one of the world’s most threatened species, spoon-billed sandpiper. Aim was for captive breeding; yet this is far from ideal way of saving species.

Xi Zhinong - helping save Yunnan snub-nosed monkey

Here's part 1 of a video I shot, on a trip to the Sundarbans mangrove forest in October 2009:

Traditional Chinese Medicine and conservation